This is My Punishment
by keyblader41996
Summary: " . . . can use his body . . . next experiment! . . . HAHAHAHAHAH!" he cackled. Vincent flinched from the volume, thinking Hojo was going to harm him again while he couldn't defend himself. "A GENIUS! That's what I AM!" He slipped in and out, only catching clips and snippets of Hojo's reverie. "Success here . . . justify . . . failures!"-Hojo's experimentation on Vince in DOC


_**This is Vincent's story while he was a prisoner of Hojo's experiments. I hope you like it!**_

* * *

"Talk! _Why_ did you let this happen?"

"Silence," Hojo grumbled, squaring his shoulders to Vincent.

Rage bubbled in Vincent's heart; loathing clenched his fists so hard they shook. "You . . . " he began. His heart sank into his stomach in bitter defeat. The words failed him. He wanted to break Hojo. He wanted to cause him the same pain he caused her. But all the words in the English language, and he couldn't find language riveting enough. He couldn't concoct an utterance that did his pain justice, couldn't find any words strong enough for his emotion to cling to. It was too great. His rage was too great. His heart ached, burdened with anger, frustration, guilt, remorse. With each beat they pumped further and further into his whole body until they poisoned his mind, his limbs, his dull tongue.

Hot, shameful tears blurred the figure before him before he could stop them, and he quickly averted his gaze to blink them away.

Lucrecia.

It was Hojo's fault. _All_ of it! The sick _bastard_! No matter what she told him Vincent would _never_ believe Hojo didn't force her into it. He would _never_ believe that someone like Lucrecia, someone so brilliant, so insightful, so accomplished and astute, could do what she did of her own volition. He would _never_ believe she would morally sink that low. Become as twisted and perverted as he was. Not her. Not Lucrecia.

Day by day, he caught her when she felt faint, he held her hair when she felt sick, all because of Hojo. Beauty, elegance, charm, _sanity_ , _morality_ sacrificed - brutally murdered in their prime - cut away from her heart in this farcical illusion of "science." "Discovery." "A pursuit of knowledge." He would never believe she brought this sickness on herself.

Hojo ruined her life.

Vincent slowly raised his eyes to glare at the man responsible, translating every negative emotion, pouring every insult, every accusation, every ounce of condemnation, every ounce of his own guilt, into his eyes. Every variation, combination, permutation of the word 'hatred' lighting the fire in his already red eyes. He wished with every fiber of him that his gaze was violent enough, strong enough to burn into Hojo, burrow deep in his soul. To rip him apart from the inside out. His eyes and nostrils flared with the fervor, and he hoped Hojo felt his hostility; he hoped it intimidated him. He tried boring holes through the beady eyes and perpetual sneer his upper lip curled into.

To his horror and frustration, it only seemed to amuse Hojo. His calm façade never wavered, never slipped for a moment. The walls of his fort never trembled under the bombardment. His lips stretched into an eerie smile, his eyebrow lifted. Vince could hear the clear challenge. " _Oh, really? Threaten me_ _?"_

"SILENCE!" he yelled. His arm shifted beneath his coat and he saw the flash of metal. Before Vincent's eyes, everything slowed down around him. He withdrew instinctually from the gun with a gasp. A chill stabbed into the nape of his neck and spread violently down his back, freezing every nerve ending he had. He hesitated. His red eyes widened, every grudge he held against Hojo momentarily forgotten the moment his life was threatened. The long, silver barrel leveled itself with his chest and he suddenly remembered that Cerberus was dangling from his belt. His own hand moved to grab it, but he knew. He knew he would be too slow. He had to watch Hojo's finger tighten around the trigger, he had to _will_ his arm to move faster, knowing it was too late in the crunched time, and the flash went off. The bang exploded in the cramped room, making his ears ring.

Burning, searing pain erupted in his chest.

Mere seconds stretched into hours. He felt the flesh tear beneath the sharp, spiraling point of the bullet. Burrowing it's way in, inch by agonizing inch, destroying muscle and tissue and bone in its wake. Blood spattered from his chest with a wet _squelch_ , flying through the air like rain before more pain could even register. He felt the bullet explode, he felt the individual fragments spiderweb from the hole, like a cracked windshield. Carving under his ribs.

Time - and pain - caught up.

The remaining breath Vincent had left him in a strangled grunt. The burning intensified, setting his whole chest ablaze. Radiating from the wound all the way down to the deepest levels of his skin, a deep-set ache that wouldn't go away no matter how he writhed. He almost blacked out instantly, black spotting his vision as the only thoughts that crossed his mind were solely focused on his agony. His mind went blank, his face curled up in pain, _he_ curled up in pain, clutching at the wound. But the slightest movement shot throbbing waves of torment through him, down his arms, into his stomach, melting bone, charring flesh, making him sick. He lurched back from the force of the close-range shot and the room spun messily around him. Distracted, his knees forgot to hold him and he toppled forward. His cheek smashed on the wood floor of the Shinra Manor basement and warm, red blood poured, hot and wet, from the wound in pulses as his heart pumped.

He heard and felt Hojo take a step; so close to his head the floorboards trembled and sent jarring vibrations echoing emptily through the hole in his chest. Pins and needles into his spine. Fear clenched his heart in a cold fist. Would Hojo shoot him again? Go for the killing blow? He tried to lift his head right as exhaustion crashed down on him. It became a monumental effort just to hold it there, shaking, trembling, growing dumbly frustrated that his eyes couldn't bring the man's knees into focus, that he just danced out of Vincent's frame of vision.

He was losing consciousness fast, he knew. His head swum, the black returned, first in spots that danced across the floor around him then pools that morphed together to form a black curtain that blocked out all visual cues. It spread quickly to his ears and everything spun away from both senses. He tried to fight it.

"Why?" Hojo was speaking words, and though he heard them, they refused to register in his mind. He was vaguely aware that the pain had faded, replaced by a terrifying numbness. Losing feeling, losing touch with his body, with reality. "Why can't these _people_ just . . . keep _quiet_?"

His lungs screamed for breath, his heart fluttered weakly, but the _thought_ of moving, of maybe reawakening the crippling burning, drained him. So tired . . . he let his head fall back to the floor and lay there, listening to Hojo's banter, waiting for awareness to leave him.

" . . . can use his body . . . next experiment! . . . HAHAHAHAHAH!" he cackled. Vincent flinched from the volume, thinking Hojo was going to harm him again while he couldn't see, couldn't defend himself. "A GENIUS! That's what I AM!" He slipped in and out, only catching clips and snippets of Hojo's reverie. "Success here . . . justify . . . failures!"

Panic seized him in one last moment of clarity before unconsciousness wrenched him away from it.

* * *

Lucrecia used to have a favorite skirt that she wore immediately every time she washed it. Grey and ruffled at the bottom as it draped longer to one side, with a purple tie that created a layered effect over her smooth, muscular legs. Purple blouse over it. Red heels that never matched at all. Every time she was asked, she said they were the only fashionable shoe choice that she could wear on her feet all day in the lab. Long, beautiful brown hair. Thick, chocolate brown. Ran through his fingers like silk. She used to have smile lines on the sides of her lips. She used to pull her lips back and flash her teeth at him and crinkle her eyes up in a genuine display of her happiness. Never vain, but Vincent always managed to find his own vanity _for_ her among the modesty she exuded. She was gorgeous, and he wasn't sure she knew it. But he did, and he more often than not wished desperately for her to be his.

His eyes traveled up this mental picture of her, but when he reached her face, tried to go to her eyes, he faltered. There was nothing where her eyes were, just pale skin. Her smile fell, and to his horror her face started to crack like glass. He took a startled step towards her but her whole body shattered, sharp glass flinging towards him from all angles. He flinched so hard, he jerked himself awake.

White. Everything white.

Too bright.

Chest hurt, pain, pain, pain.

Exhausted. Sleep.

Can't. Too bright.

Ow, ow, _ow_.

Sharp, throbbing pain punched through his chest and he moaned weakly, stiffening against it. His breath refused to come any deeper than a shallow, wet gasp. Still exhausted, still confused, still disoriented. All he knew was that he was uncomfortable and his chest was cold and wet but he couldn't move for some reason. He turned his head to the side and it made the room a little less bright, but that only made his eyelids seem heavier. They closed again of their own volition and he welcomed another respite from his discomfort.

When his eyes opened again the first thing he saw was Hojo leaning over him. "Wakey, wakey!" he sing-songed, gently slapping Vince's cheeks.

His mind was still fogged over. " _H-hurts . . ._ " He mindlessly tried to pull away, to put as much distance between him and the madman as he could, but he still couldn't move. He numbly stared at his wrists, trying to comprehend the thick, leather straps around his wrists that bound him to the cold, metal table.

"Well, Mister Valentine, I hope you've had a nice nap, but now it's time to get to work." His voice was so high and harsh. It hurt Vincent's ears. He shut his bleary, blurry eyes again in another attempt to slip away, block it all out. Hojo must have seen the light dimming in his eyes. He slapped him again. "No, no, no, don't pass out on me, Mister Valentine!" he threatened.

He blinked hard, blinked through the fading throbbing in his chest, as Hojo strolled behind him.

" . . . Hurts . . ." he rasped, groaning. "Where . . . _What happened?_ " his mind screamed with ferocious clarity. As soon as he tried to translate them to sounds on his tongue, the words couldn't string themselves together. "Wh- whe . . . where . . . " He gave up. Vince followed Hojo with his eyes, even as his back turned away and he snapped on a pair of gloves. His mind and heart started racing, wondering what pain the madman was going to cause him. His breath hitched and came faster, nearly panting, until he felt light-headed. He heard the clatter of wheels on tile as Hojo wheeled a metal tray over, picking something up off of it. He brought it over, holding it above Vincent's face. A razor-sharp scalpel.

He gently touched the point to Vincent's arm, holding it straight up. Vince bit his lip and braced against the cold, stinging bite of the metal, waiting tensely for the inevitable slice.

"Mmmm, on second thought . . . " Hojo muttered, as if to himself.

He turned away again and returned the scalpel to the table, holding up a pair of surgical scissors instead. He bent over Vincent's arm and he braced again for a slice, for the cold metal to carve into his skin. The leather groaned against his tension and he shut his eyes. Instead, he heard the tearing of fabric. He opened his eyes in surprise to see that Hojo cut the sleeve of his suit and shirt away from his arm. His shoulders relaxed back against the table and Hojo snorted. "Oh, don't be so clichéed. That was only the first step. _Now_ you'll be wanting to get ready."

"What- . . . what are you . . . "

Hojo sloppily slathered orange iodine on his forearm then without warning grabbed the scalpel again and stabbed it down into Vincent's arm, drawing it smoothly towards his wrist with the precision of years of careful practice. Vincent tried to wrench his arm away from the blade as he felt muscle and sinew tear beneath the point but the straps held him down, forced him to lie still and endure the misery. He thrashed and struggled as hard as he could, Hojo regarding him calmly until the dull aching started up in his chest again. He slumped against the table, tired out, black hair slicked against his forehead in a hot and cold sweat. Hojo peeled the raw flaps of skin back with his fingers and grabbed a pair of long tweezers off the table, digging around inside his forearm, and Vincent felt every excruciating nerve ending the cold metal touched. He heard the metal scrape on bone, he heard the sick squelching of flesh moving beneath the violent motions of the pliers, and he bit his tongue against every instinct he had to scream until his throat bled. He turned away, pathetically willing Hojo to stop.

"Now it's a known fact," Hojo said between gouges, "that all members of the Turks have tracking devices put in their arms upon acceptance. We don't want your- Ah! There it is!" Vincent turned back despite himself as Hojo clasped the tweezers around something inside his arm and ripped it out, pulling gummy fibers of flesh with it. He held the small metal microchip in front of Vincent's face, no bigger than a fingernail. "We don't want your _friends_ to come looking for you, now do we?"

The sight of the gore on the chip mixed with the pain and exhaustion of his fight crashed down on him like a wave, and despite Hojo's warning the black out crept up his spine and pulsed in his neck. He slipped away again, weakly hoping it would be for a long time.


End file.
